Danja Akulin: Between The Lines

19 May - 16 July 2022

Danja Akulin: Between the lines
INAUGURAL EXHIBITION In- Gate Gallery is pleased to present the inaugural exhibition in the new Brussels location, the solo show of Danja Akulin “Between the Lines”, on view from May 19...
«The metaphysical meaning of any authentic symbolics is not built upon sensory images, but it contained within them defining them through itself. These sensory images are themselves rational, not simply as physical, but specifically as metaphysical images, bearing these latter ones in themselves and being enlightened by them.”/ Pavel Florensky /
The exposition “Between the Lines” brings together black-and-white drawings created between 2012 and 2022. Danja Akulin (b. 1977) lives and works in Berlin since 2000, he studied at the University of Arts of Berlin (UdK) at the Department of Fine Arts (2000 -2005), where he has completed his Advanced MFA (2005 – 2006).

For his first show with the gallery the artist has chosen the title “Between the Lines“ as a reflection of the meanings depicted through sensory images, the cognition of reality out of the physical and material space. The selection of the artworks on display presents large format drawings realized in the artist’s signature technique - graphite and pencil on paper mounted on canvas, or in charcoal on canvas.
Untitled, 2021. Graphite, pencil on paper mounted on canvas, 135 x 200 cm
Each black and white space represents a new page of reality constructed by the artist and gives the opportunity to touch the mystery of visible life forms, to dive through the superficial level of perception, reading “between the lines".
2021, Untitled, Graphite, pencil on paper mounted on canvas, 110 x 200 cm
Untitled, 2022, Graphite, pencil on paper mounted on canvas, 135 x 135 cm

Compositions by Danja Akulin are born from the artist's imagination or memories, maybe it explains why sometimes they are perceived as surreal, creating the state of half-dream, half-reality, the feeling of a perfect image capture just for an instant. Akulin’s laconic spaces create the link with another level of perception and meanings, guiding the viewer through the sensory image. As soon as we try to hold on to the image itself, it becomes defragmented, almost abstract, balancing on the border of appearance and disappearance.
Untitled, 2019, Charcoal on canvas, 145 X 220 cm
Danja Akulin creates black-and-white landscapes in monochrome technique, deliberately choosing a laconic language of drawing as an instrument that makes it possible to convey the idea of the image in the most concentrated and pure form: “A drawing may not contain bright colours, light and shade are sufficient. Optical oversaturation of the world can be avoided by focusing on a plot, generalising and reducing it to a precise statement."

Accepting the invitation to take a walk in the monochrome spaces of Danja Akulin's works, a viewer experiences their hypnotic effect, teetering on the verge of half dream and half reality, in the space of half-shades, finding a way between vague or sharp outlines of depicted objects, and discovers sublime moments in the most simple and unsophisticated.